Description

In addition to an analysis of the text of the Mémoires, its literary quality and humour, this article examines other aspects of the text. The structural strategies found in Berlioz’s last written work, in which, it has been said, the composer put forward an image of himself for posterity, are brought under scrutiny here. This article identifies a link between omnipresent words and completely absent music. In all likelihood, the exclusion of the latter gave rise to the inspiration for the former, as if driven by a mysteriously decisive process of attraction. Particularly close links are also developed between the history of a life and the history of a body of work. How did Berlioz, who was only interested in writing music, go about structuring his Mémoires as if they were a programme for his music. How did he, a man of action seeking peace, invent this place of silence and poetry?

These are all questions that emphasise the most surprisingly dramatic and most incredibly expressive dimension of a ridiculously misunderstood genius.